Bubble <3
A coproduction of the Munich Biennale with Musik der Jahrhunderte Stuttgart, commissioned by the West Kowloon Cultural District; in cooperation with Connecting Spaces Hong Kong / and the Zurich University of the Arts; and the Goethe Institute Hong Kong
With kind support by LOVAAS
Sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation
Composition and installation: Lam Lai; composition and libretto: Wilmer Chan; libretto, stage design and choreography: Nadim Abbas; composition and project management: Vanissa Law; installation and stage design: Fiona Lee; concept and direction: Lam Lai, Wilmer Chan, Nadim Abbas, Vanissa Law, Fiona Lee
With: Susanne Leitz-Lorey (soprano, Neue Vocalsolisten), Martin Nagy (tenor, Neue Vocalsolisten), Guillermo Anzorena (baritone, Neue Vocalsolisten), Marget Flach (Performance), Marc-Philipp Kochendörfer (Performance), Hubert Schedlbauer (Performance)
Touch. It's all screen, unlocked with a glance. With invisible hands, we fade-in to some nameless refuge, our geometry augmented and supplemented in real time. Optimized for the present, a voice will reach you, with sparse breath and thin skin; this machine that learns, adapts, authenticates. Do you recognise this face? So completely integrated into the fabric of existence. A schizoid group hallucination. The chatter of trolls in suspended animation.
Inside the gecko's chamber, I, I repeat, II hear this heart this heart, this heart. Stored, between four walls, the same weak and distant memories. Indifferently placed, ready to be accessed. We have wandered around the block, in a loop, our minds freed from the necessity to remember. We live, and we share, those moments, in a cloud of knowing; gnawing away, at our brains, at the speed of light. Neutral, perfect, power management. Nothing changes.
In a hyper-connected era, the borders between the real and the virtual are becoming increasingly fluid. With the widespread implementation of the internet and social media, information is instantly within reach and human relations forged at the touch of a screen. However, with such extreme conveniences it is easy take for granted how we may have surrendered our most routine and unconscious thoughts and actions; intimate aspects of countless individuals' daily existences that are quantified, processed and fed back by invisible hands in an echo chamber of algorithms with profitable ends.
In Bubble <3, an audience is led on a guided tour of an apartment block, repeating the same walk three times around the exterior of the building before finally entering a domestic living space. Audience members are encouraged to form different sub-groupings for each of the repeated walks through various methods of performative and spatial intervention. Specially conceived vignettes of everyday activities take place as the walk progresses; a cacophony of musical outbursts, random noises, and unfiltered dialog simulating the endless chatter of anonymous trolls on online forums.
With every repetition, a moment of familiarly is muddled by confusion about the authenticity of events encountered. This culminates in the interior scene, where the bubble of speech is replaced by the mute bubble of four walls, and previously unplaceable sounds take on new significance as a composed sonic-architectural configuration.
Lam Lai Composition und installation
Lam Lai was born in Hong Kong. She studied composition at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. As a composer she is interested in the creation of new media hybrids. Her compositions - orchestral, ensemble, electronic, and interdisciplinary works - have celebrated their world premieres all across the globe. Lam Lai concentrates on the combination of conventional performance methods with other art forms such as electronic sound, visual art, film, literature, and theater. Her work "Frozen Moment" for synchronization of two ensembles in two cities was performed by the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and Ensemble Adapter at the Berliner Festspiele in March 2011. She has worked with, among others, the Nieuw Ensemble (Amsterdam); International Ensemble Modern Akademie (Frankfurt); SWR Experimentalstudio (Freiburg, Germany); Atlas Academy (Amsterdam); Parallax (Norway); Dallas Winds (U.S.); and Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Her works were performed at, among others, the Holland Festival; MOBILE M+: INFLATION! (Hong Kong); Musica Nova Helsinki; Atlas Festival (Amsterdam); New Vision Arts Festival (Hong Kong); Sonic Anchor (Hong Kong); WASBE festival (World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, California); as well as in South Korea and France. Currently she is active as a composer and performer with the music theater company de Veenfabriek in the Netherlands.
Wilmer Chan composition and libretto
Wilmer Chan, born in 1985, started his education in music - inspired by his love for jazz - as an older teenager. Improvisation is still an important element in his musical development. He lives in Hong Kong and performs free improvisation regularly with local musicians and musicians who are traveling through Hong Kong. In addition, he plays bass in metal bands and provides support to indie music groups when they produce their music.
Nadim Abbas libretto, stage design und choreography
Nadim Abbas is a visual artist from Hong Kong. His work explores technologies of perception, culminating in the construction of complex set pieces where objects exist in an ambiguous relationship with their own image, and bodies succumb to the seduction of space. Abbas was awarded with the Asian Cultural Council Altius Fellowship and the HK Arts Development Award (Young Artist / Visual Arts) in 2014.
Recent exhibitions include: Blue Noon (Last Tango, Zurich), Clouds⇄Forests (7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art), Camoufleur (VITRINE, London), Chimera (Antenna Space, Shanghai), The Last Vehicle (UCCA, Beijing), 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience (New Museum, New York), The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else (Witte de With, Rotterdam).
Vanissa Law composition and project management
Vanissa Law was born in Hong Kong and began her studies at the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) in 2004. Starting out as a piano major, she studied with Chinese composer Mr. Cui Shiguang. After graduating from HKBU, Vanissa turned her focus towards electroacoustic music whilst majoring in voice and music composition at Ball State University, Indiana. Vanissa was granted the Fulbright Research Award in 2014-15 and was sponsored to do a 10-month research residency at the Louisiana Digital Media Center. In 2017, she obtained a PhD in interactive electroacoustic music at HKBU under the supervision of Prof. Christopher Keyes.
Fiona Lee installation and stage design
Born in Hong Kong, Fiona Lee’s works of art are derived from the intersection between installation and performance. Listening creates an important connection between Fiona and the world; this is when she feels the movement of every single moment. She believes her art creations represent the progress she is making in exploring and accepting her own and others’ possibilities.
Lee’s installations & performances have featured at a number of art festivals and exhibitions in Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Korea & Taiwan. She has also featured in duo or trio improvisation performance section with a variety of musicians & sound artists in gigs and site-specific environments.
Susanne Leitz-Lorey Singer
Susanne Leitz-Lorey, lyrischer Sopran, studierte an der Musikhochschule Stuttgart. Nach Abschluss des Gesangsstudiums 1988 besuchte sie die Opernschule und legte 1991 die Bühnenreife ab. Kurse bei Eugen Rabine, Judith Beckmann, Barbara Schlick und Ingrid Figur vervollständigen ihre Studien.
In Zusammenarbeit mit Helmuth Rilling, Ingo Metzmacher, Hans Zender, Manfred Schreier und anderen ist sie als Konzertsängerin vielfältig künstlerisch tätig. Ihr Repertoire umfasst sämtliche große Oratorienpartien. Sie wirkt mit bei CD-Produktionen, Rundfunkaufnahmen und Operngastspielen.
Ihre Liebe gilt darüber hinaus dem Liedgesang, seit 1991 ist sie Mitglied der Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
Martin Nagy Singer
Martin Nagy erhielt nach dem Studium der Schulmusik an der Stuttgarter Musikhochschule mit den Hauptfächern Violine und Gesang, der Liedklasse und des Opernfachs zunächst ein Engagement an der Oper Annaberg-Buchholz.
Seit 1993 ist er freischaffender Konzert- und Opernsänger. Zahlreiche Rundfunk- und CD-Produktionen dokumentieren seinen Weg als Solist. Ein Schwerpunkt und zugleich belebender Kontrapunkt zu seiner Tätigkeit als Oratoriensänger ist heute die Arbeit mit den Neuen Vocalsolisten.
Guillermo Anzorena Singer
Guillermo Anzorena ist in Mendoza, Argentinien geboren. Er studierte Gesang an der Hochschule für Musik der Universität National von Cuyo. 1991 war er Preisträger beim Gesangswettbewerb "Junge Stimmen" in Buenos Aires, 1993 wurde er von der Richard-Wagner-Gesellschaft als "Junges Talent des Jahres" ausgezeichnet.
Verschiedene Stipendien ermöglichten ihm, sich in Argentinien intensiv mit dem deutschen Lied zu beschäftigen. Guillermo Anzorena lebt seit 1994 in Karlsruhe, absolvierte an der dortigen Hochschule für Musik ein Aufbaustudium sowie eine Ausbildung an der Opernschule. Seine Engagements als Opernsänger führten ihn u. a. zum Konstanzer Opernsommer und zur Jungen Oper Stuttgart. CD- und Rundfunkaufnahmen, u. a. mit dem SWR und der Jungen Oper Stuttgart begleiten seine solistische Laufbahn. Er spielte mehrere Liedzyklen von Carlos Guastavino ein und konzertiert als Mitglied der Ostinato-Stiftung international mit Werken zeitgenössischer argentinischer Komponisten.
Seit März 2000 ist er Mitglied der Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. Zahlreiche Konzerttourneen des Ensembles führen ihn durch das In- und Ausland. Bei einem Gastspiel der Neuen Vocalsolisten in Bergamo sang er die Hauptrolle bei der Weltpremiere der Oper Si von Roberto Andreoni. Seit Oktober 2000 ist er als Dozent für Gesang an der Hochschule für Kirchenmusik in Tübingen tätig.
Cast & credits
Composition and installation: Lam Lai
composition and libretto: Wilmer Chan
libretto, stage design and choreography: Nadim Abbas
composition and project management: Vanissa Law
installation and stage design: Fiona Lee
concept and direction: Lam Lai, Wilmer Chan, Nadim Abbas, Vanissa Law, Fiona Lee
With: Susanne Leitz-Lorey (soprano, Neue Vocalsolisten), Martin Nagy (tenor, Neue Vocalsolisten), Guillermo Anzorena (baritone, Neue Vocalsolisten), Marget Flach (Performance), Marc-Philipp Kochendörfer (Performance), Hubert Schedlbauer (Performance)
kindly supported by
